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Saturday, November 24, 2012

Each week, I highlight ten things each week that inspired me to greater financial, personal, and professional success. Hopefully, they will inspire you as well.

1. Simon Bailey on a miserable life

People do this far too often. They go to a job that makes them miserable, then come home and use what little energy and resources they have to simply blow off steam from that miserable job rather than building anything for the future.

“You work and live to meet your daily needs rather than to maximize your potential. You simply exist from day to day, without much passion or enthusiasm for life. Meanwhile, your talents remain untapped, buried somewhere deep inside. This is an awful way to live.” – Simon T. Bailey

If you don’t do something today that potentially leads to a better life, you’ll never have that better life. Read the entire article.

I’m thinking about this choice because paying over $5 for a dozen eggs seems ridiculous. Especially when compared to the carton of bleach-white generic eggs beside them for $1.04. But I take the $5 eggs every time because they are free-range and organic and (despite the debate on whether organic is actually better) I feel they are worth the price.

I’m willing to pay five times the amount because I can’t stand the idea of chickens crammed together so tightly that they can’t move. I want my eggs to come from chickens that scratch and run and chase each other. Happy eggs come from happy chickens, right?

Hippie mysticism aside, buying cruelty-free products is a value for which I’m willing to pay more. But do I have to pay more? Is there a way to lower the cost so I can have my moral cake, er, soufflé, and eat it too?
Read the entire article.

Most of us are so busy we barely have time to brush our teeth, let alone explore major shifts in lifestyle — even when those shifts promise to restore vitality and balance.

That’s why, if you want a life that feels more sane and relaxed, it may help to start small. Making even one or two tiny changes is often enough to help you feel that other positive transformations are within reach. To help you along, here are 17 quick and easy suggestions that can have a surprisingly big impact on your sense of freedom and happiness.

Friday, November 16, 2012

One of the hardest parts of learning to be fiscally responsible is breaking free from the payment mentality. It’s so easy to convince yourself it’s okay to purchase something because the payment is so affordable.

Becoming mired down in monthly payments creates a cycle which seems almost impossible to break free from. Because you always have a payment to make, you are never able to save up enough money to pay cash for your next big purchase. Then, when the time comes that you have to make a large purchase, you are forced to finance it and start the ride all over again.

How many times have you decided if you could afford something based solely upon whether or not you could afford its monthly payment? You didn’t stop and evaluate whether or not you could afford to spend $2,000 on a new television. Instead you considered the $50 payment. “I can do that,” you thought to yourself. Never mind the fact that you’ll be making that $50 payment for the next four or five years. Read the entire article.

One of the ways I manage to spend very little is by not spending much on clothes. I had to buy some undershirts for my new job this week which doubled my clothing expenditure for the year. My only previous clothing expense for the year was for underwear.

I estimate that I generally spend less than $100 on clothing.
I don’t have to buy clothes very often. Between getting clothes for my birthday and Christmas, getting free t-shirts from events such as .... Read the entire article.

Buying fixer-uppers can get you more house than you would normally be able to afford at a reasonable price. They can be pleasantly inexpensive. But they can also be money pits, masquerading behind a facade of charming woodwork and arched doorways.

As tempting as the purchase price is for houses that need a little TLC, you must assess whether a fixer-upper is right for you. To do that, you need an appraisal. And I’m not just talking about the house.
Read the entire article.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

There are many federal programs in place to help home owners faced with foreclosure, an issue that has been at the forefront of the housing crisis in this decade.

Information about these resources can be found all in one place on the government's Homeowner Help page. First, download the Mortgage Assistance Guide from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
If you are confused about what to do...

If you’ve already cut expenses to the bone and done everything else you can to use what you have wisely, then here are a few tips you can use to make some extra money that you can do immediately that can help get your bills caught up, and start paying down that debt.

Some of these are just common sense and some you might not have ever thought about, but all of them can make you some extra money to get by on even when the overall economy is not so hot. Read the entire article.

A growing body of research indicates that what’s known as love and positive attitude has a very strong effect on our biological system to not only live happier, but live longer. Effects of love on heart and vascular system varies from secretion of different “good” hormones to lower stress hormones and blood pressure.

My friend Brad Chaffee, founder of this site, is dedicated to living a credit free, cash only lifestyle. While he has gone to great lengths to do exactly that, his view would be considered extreme by many.

But it begs the question, are there really people that make their way through life without having to use credit cards? I searched far and wide and actually found people that have done just that. They haven’t had a house or car payment in years, and their retirement accounts are fully funded for decades of worry free finances. Who are these people?
Read the entire article.

"Simplicity of living, if deliberately chosen, implies a compassionate approach to life. It means that we are choosing to live our daily lives with some degree of conscious appreciation of the condition of the rest of the world." Duane Elgin

"Do what is good with your own hands, so that you might earn something to give to the needy." Ephesians 4:28